DOHA: Addressing the opening of the 140th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and its related meetings, the Amir

H H  Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, praised the choice of the theme “Parliaments as platforms for promoting education for peace, security and the rule of law” for the 140th Assembly of IPU and related meetings.

“Investing in quality education is one of the most important elements of building the economy, advancing societies, and achieving growth and prosperity. But ignorance is one of the most important obstacles to peoples’ growth and renaissance. It also stokes intolerance and racism, and facilitates the dissemination of preconceived notions against the different other,” H H the Amir said.

The opening was attended by Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, Their Excellencies Ministers, Shura Council members, and heads of diplomatic missions in the State.

The opening was also attended by Speaker of the Shura Council H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Gabriela Cuevas Barron; Secretary-General of the IPU, Martin Chungong; Under-Secretary for the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office Vladimir Voronkov, and parliament speakers and heads of delegations of IPU members, in addition to members of the union’s executive committee and representatives of regional and international organisations.

H H the Amir said that Qatar has paid special attention to international cooperation in the field of education and provided development support to some developing countries in various regions of the world, as well as international organisations operating in this field.

“Our country has also launched numerous initiatives in the field of supporting and promoting education in collaboration with national and global partners such as the initiatives: ‘Educate a Child’, the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), and other initiatives.”

H H the Amir said: “In Arab countries, educated youth led popular movements in demand for dignity, justice and freedom, which they summed up in the saying “decent living”. They proved that they were cultured and civilized in their demands and movements, when they were allowed the opportunity for peaceful activity in some Arab countries.”

“You will also discuss the rule of law. It is difficult to find a state or a contemporary organisation that publicly rejects the idea of the rule of law within the state. Without it, there will be no justice of any kind, and the two antitheses of the rule of law are chaos, on the one hand, and tyranny on the other. They are actually two sides of the same coin. Tyranny means the prevalence of arbitrariness as in the case of chaos.”

HH the Amir said: “At the regional and global levels, the danger of the receding role of international law in the relations between the states is on the rise as there is a tendency towards giving priority to the supremacy of power over it, with the relegation of international law and international legality to a weapon of the weak only. It does not help them much vis-a-vis the veto of the powerful members at the Security Council, or in granting an international cover to those who perpetrate aggression against others, human rights violators and those who annex the territories of others by force.

“An example of this is the recognition of the major superpower in this world of the de facto annexation of Jerusalem and the official annexation of the Golan by Israel.”

H H the Amir said that everyone knows that these procedures go against international law and legitimacy and principles of justice.

“But who does compel states to abide by international law? There is no legal jurisprudential answer to this question. The superpowers must understand particularly that their power is not only the privilege of their own, but it also imposes duties on them, the foremost of which is assistance in the implementation of international law. Their leaders should not get dragged into politics of force. The leaders of other countries must realise that there is no alternative to dialogue and understanding among them on the basis of respect for international law. The alternative is enduring disputes and permanent conflicts, and continuing struggle of the oppressed which is rife with sacrifices for justice where injustice and occupation prevail.”

“There are hot issues in our region where local factors are no longer crucial, as in cases like Syria, Libya and Yemen, although I cannot exonerate regimes and local forces of the underlying responsibility for their outbreak, yet, the international or even the regional intervention under international cover is outweighing the role of these regimes and local factors at this stage,” H H the Amir said.

H H the Amir said that if regional countries and major powers had acted responsibly and pushed towards peaceful change and political solutions, they would have saved much of the pain and suffering incurred by these peoples.

“Each of us has his views and opinions, but there are many common challenges that face all of us, including environment, climate, poverty, armed conflicts, extremism, terrorism, and recently the problem of cybersecurity and individual privacy intrusion. To counter them, we assume a minimum level of commitment to the human values that we share.”

HH the Amir said that all religions reject the practice of torture, arbitrary detention and disrespect of human dignity.

“God has created us in this world different to get acquainted and not to quarrel, to integrate not to clash, and concerning this God Almighty says: ‘O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other. Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you.’ This integration explains to us that a human being cannot live isolated from society, because that is completely contrary to the norms of life. This also applies to societies in our contemporary world, where isolationism is not an option.”

H H the Amir said that just as we cooperate in trade, industry, export and import of technology, we must also cooperate in combating environmental pollution and taking precautions against technology risks and the culture of consumerism.

“Just as we cooperate in fighting terrorism, we must cooperate in combating the causes of extremism and addressing its causes. Experience proves over and over again that extremism is not confined to one civilization than the other, nor to the adherents of a specific religion than the other, and that every generalization of this kind is nothing but an utter racism.”

“And the war on terrorism should not mean fighting armed extremism of only one colour, while we see that there are extremist terrorist forces and movements that are not on the agendas of this war in which we all partake in,” H H the Amir said. H H the Amir said that parliamentary diplomacy is of greater importance in promoting dialogue for peaceful settlement of disputes, even for conflicts that are thought by some to be insoluble.

H H the Amir said that the State of Qatar – by grace of God and with the presence of the State’s developmental vision and combined efforts of its citizens and residents – witnesses a development boom in various fields and not just in education.